


The Spirit, the Witch, the Fool

by writersstareoutwindows, YogfairyWorld



Series: YogfairyAU [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Curses, Hallucinations, Magic, Swearing, hexes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:31:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writersstareoutwindows/pseuds/writersstareoutwindows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogfairyWorld/pseuds/YogfairyWorld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martyn practices magic, he meets a friendly person, and a not so friendly person</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirit, the Witch, the Fool

Welcome to the forest, to flower fairies and lightning mages, to cursed humans and tainted exiles. Shadows lurk here, black and purple. Still, there is much that is good, if only you look. But mind you don’t look too long, or you may never leave.

~

Magic skipped just under the oak tree’s bark. Martyn pressed his hands against it, partly to keep his balance, partly to feel the stream of magic. Eyes closed, he pictured it bending toward his fingers and sprouting as little white daisies. The stream remained resolute along its normal flow.

Martyn leaned into the crook of the tree with a frustrated sigh. This was the twelfth time he’d failed. Oak was always so damn stubborn.

In a last-ditch attempt, he scaled one of the branches and hung upside down by his knees. It was one reliable way to shift focus from himself to the natural magic thrumming around him. As his mind spiralled outward, he felt magic against his skin and the ends of his hair. Twitching his fingers pushed it back and forth, but not enough to sprout daisies.

“Damn it!” He batted his loose shirt out of his face. “Come on, how hard can it actually be? It’s like the gods of magic are like, ‘let’s ruin this guy’s day!’ Thanks, gods!”

He waved his fist at the upside-down sky. As he eyed the clouds, wondering how hard it would be to shape them, his magical exhaustion was suddenly shattered by the jolt of terror up his spine. He swung round on a rush of adrenaline so quickly that he fell out of the tree.

Hitting the ground knocked all the air out of him. Something blonde streaked past the edge of his vision. The sense of terror intensified, but it wasn’t coming from Martyn–it was connected to the blonde streak.

He rolled to his feet and planted his hands in the earth. Magic rushed through his fingers. He followed the stream to the dark, jagged patches of fear coiling around a brighter magical being. The bright spot was a fairy, he knew, but the fear came from something chasing her. A poacher, he guessed. It had to be. He’d faced them before.

Martyn was crouched on the ground with his hands in the dirt. He felt every inch of the forest within twenty feet, surging with energy. He just looked in the direction he wanted to go and the plants opened a path for him. He took off like a shot without a second’s hesitation, eyes fixed on the person at the end of his path.

The poacher held something small and fiercely glowing–the fairy. She struggled away from the jar in his other hand.

“Hey!” Martyn yelled, right before he threw himself at the poacher.

He stepped neatly out of the way, but was surprised enough that he lost hold of the fairy. She flitted through his fingers into the underbrush.

“What–” he turned on Martyn, who was splayed on the ground “–the hell?”

His face was framed by long blonde hair, a pointed hat perched atop his head. His eyes seemed to stare straight through Martyn into his heart. He frowned as though he found nothing of interest there.

“Who do you think you are?” He raised his voice as he approached. “That was going to be my week’s food.”

Looking up, Martyn had to shade his eyes from the sun to see him. “Looked pretty small for a meal.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Martyn’s smirk irritated him so much that he kicked him in the side. “You ignorant fuck.”

He put a foot on Martyn’s chest before Martyn had time to recover. One deep breath seemed to compose him.

“I use those things with my magic. They are very important to me and they are very hard to catch. So when you interrupt me and saying something like that? It’s quite fucking rude.”

Martyn pushed at the boot on his chest, but despite the person’s slight frame, he didn’t budge.

“I don’t care what you do with them. It’s wrong.”

“Hm. So you say.” He shrugged. “I still need it.”

He nudged Martyn with his other foot while he struggled. His frightening eyes lit up like he’d just remembered something.

“I bet you’re part of that coven, aren’t you? The one I hate. It’s full of fools.”

A now-familiar fear crept up Martyn’s spine. The person fixed his eyes on him and leaned down.

“You’re a fool.”

Martyn fought back the magical fear. He did not like being insulted. His fingers dug in the dirt to reach the earth’s magic. Once he felt it, a flick of his wrist sent a thorny branch whipping across the person’s back. It knocked his hat off, but he caught it in one deft movement.

The smile he turned on Martyn was sharp as knives. His eyebrows raised.

“You want to play dirty?”

Stepping off Martyn, he replaced his hat with flourish. Then he started to chant in some strange language Martyn didn’t know, though he’d studied many. Martyn couldn’t feel anything except a growing sense of dread that he couldn’t place.

The person’s laughter ended the spell.

“I wish I could see your face when you get back to the coven. Something like this.”

He mimicked a look of shocked horror: big eyes, open mouth, long hair literally standing on end. Then his expression switched back to a smirk.

“That’s my favorite curse to use on fools like you–FUCK!”

A bramble smacked him from behind. He turned with rage on his face, but it dissolved at the sight of the writhing bush taller than he was. Turning, he saw all the forest come to life under Martyn’s influence, a veritable floral army rising up behind him. Magic buzzed in his ears.

The person forced a smile. “I guess that’s my cue to go.”

“Yeah.” Martyn’s voice was quiet but imposing. “It is.”

He flashed a last hateful look at Martyn, then held down the edges of his hat and scampered into the shadows between trees. He vanished almost immediately.

Martyn collapsed in a heap, exhausted. The forest settled down as his power ebbed. His skin was tingling and his vision was blurred. He rubbed his eyes.

“I hate people like that,” he sighed into empty air.

And someone replied.

“Me too. They don’t deserve to walk beneath these trees.”

Martyn shot upright, twisting around to see who had spoken. But he was alone. He’d even shaped a thorny fence around himself for protection.

“Okay, okay, okay.” The voice groaned. “Look, I haven’t been moving much and I just woke up, so…if you could not move quite so fast, that would be great.”

No one, there was no one. But they sounded so close and so loud, like–like they were in his head.

“Who are you!” He rattled his head around as if he could shake them out. “Why are you in my head!”

Their sigh blew around all the thoughts in Martyn’s brain. “It’s quite complicated. Please stop yelling.”

“What are you?” Martyn spoke no more quietly.

“I’m the spirit of this forest. Guardian of the plants, creatures, fae.”

“Right, right, that makes me feel better.” Martyn leaned into a tree. “Not! Not even a little! Why are you in my head?”

“You just did something noble at your own risk. That makes me trust you.”

“What, noble? Are you talking about that guy?” He gestured vaguely in the direction the probably-not-a-poacher had run. “He wasn’t a big deal. Just hit him a few times and he ran off.”

Laughter echoed in his mind like wind in a canyon.

“That was the witch of the well. He is very dangerous and very powerful.”

“He didn’t even try to hurt me…” Martyn rubbed his arms, feeling cold.

“That’s because he thought you weren’t worth his time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know the thoughts of my forest, and I know the thoughts of its creatures. I think you humans call it telepathy?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we do.”

Martyn laughed suddenly and pulled his knees up to his chin. This was mad, absolutely mad. Sure, he and his friends did magic. All the time. And it often went sour for all of them. But this? He’d never run into anything like this. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

“It’s not going to get any weirder, right? Spirit in my head, telepathy, guardian of the forest…”

“That doesn’t seem so weird.”

“That’s because you are the bloody spirit!” Martyn laughed again. It was not an encouraging sound.

“Fair enough.”

“And why are you in my head? What makes me so special?”

“As I said, you stood up to the witch. You protected one of my own. And, as a spirit, I need a human host in order to communicate and wield power. But for spirits to reach our full power, we must–”

“So I’m a host now?” Martyn was alternating between dark humor, unbearable confusion, and blank denial. “Brilliant. Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“I do not approve of your language, human.”

Martyn felt the spirit frown, if it were possible. He knocked his head back and forth to shake them around some.

“I don’t approve of you being in my head!”

“Look. We’ve both had a shock, okay? I entered your body. You are not handling it well.” They tried to sound calming. “Let’s just talk about this. Maybe over a cup of mint tea?”

“Why mint tea?”

A bit of happiness unconnected to Martyn’s own feelings lit up his mind.

“I really like it.”

“Fine.” Martyn stood up slowly, and as he did, added, “But no–possessing me–or whatever, okay?”

“I can’t do that unless you trust me.”

He stopped where he stood. The horror he felt this time was no well witch’s, but purely his own. He’d said that as a joke without believing they could really do it.

“Well. That’s comforting.”

He felt the spirit smirk. “Yes. Let’s go and get that tea.”


End file.
